A ferry boat leaves Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. Alcatraz will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its history as a federal prison this weekend.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

A ferry boat leaves Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, Calif., on...

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Visitors tour the main cellblock on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. Alcatraz will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its history as a federal prison this weekend.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Visitors tour the main cellblock on Alcatraz Island in San...

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The old Social Club, commonly referred to as the Officer's Club, is in need of repair on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. Alcatraz will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its history as a federal prison this weekend.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

The old Social Club, commonly referred to as the Officer's Club, is...

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The old lighthouse keeper's home continues to deteriorate on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. Alcatraz will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its history as a federal prison this weekend.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

The old lighthouse keeper's home continues to deteriorate on...

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A shipment of prisoners arrives on Alcatraz in August 1934.

Photo: GGNRA

A shipment of prisoners arrives on Alcatraz in August 1934.

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Tourists snap photos of the exercise yard on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009. Alcatraz will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its history as a federal prison this weekend.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Tourists snap photos of the exercise yard on Alcatraz Island in San...

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Prisoner Capone from the book, "Alcatraz, the Gangster Years," by David Ward and Gene Kassebaum.

Photo: Bureau Of Prisons, University Of California Press

Prisoner Capone from the book, "Alcatraz, the Gangster Years," by...

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Prisoner Stroud from the book, "Alcatraz, the Gangster Years," by David Ward and Gene Kassebaum.

Photo: Bureau Of Prisons, University Of California Press

Prisoner Stroud from the book, "Alcatraz, the Gangster Years," by...

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Prisoner Barker from the book, "Alcatraz, the Gangster Years," by David Ward and Gene Kassebaum.

On Sunday, a group of men and women who lived on a grim rock in San Francisco Bay will gather to mark the 75th anniversary of Alcatraz as a federal prison.

A few of them were guards, many were children of guards who grew up on the island - they called themselves the Island Gang - and two were once prisoners on The Rock.

The ex-cons, Fred Dekker and Darwin Coon, both reformed criminals, will be among the guards and family members who will offer talks. They call themselves "Alcatraz alumni," and they will explain life at a place no one ever forgot.

The event is open to the public, but all the tickets were snapped up weeks ago.

"They used to be dying to get away from Alcatraz," said John Cantwell, a National Park Service ranger on the island. "Now they're dying to get out here."

Though much of the day will focus on the island's past, the alumni, who have formed a nonprofit corporation, are hoping to raise funds to rebuild some of the buildings destroyed when Indians occupied Alcatraz in 1969 and 1970. Among the casualties were the lighthouse keeper's quarters and a social hall for island families.

Place for 'bad apples'

Alcatraz began as a fort and later was used as an Army disciplinary barracks, but it became world famous after the Bureau of Prisons took it over in 1934.

It was the high noon of the government's war on crime - J. Edgar Hoover and Eliot Ness, the top G-Men - were making examples of the country's gangsters. Ness had brought down Al Capone, Public Enemy No. 1. Capone, whose criminal empire was supposedly worth more than $60 million, never paid any taxes; he was convicted of tax evasion and got 11 years.

"They wanted to take the rotten apples and put them in a single barrel," said John Martini, an Alcatraz historian.

The first shipment of convicts - 24 men from McNeil Island, a federal prison near Seattle - was made quietly on Aug. 11, 1934. But 11 days later, in a blaze of publicity, a special train arrived at Tiburon from the federal prison in Atlanta. The rail cars, convicts and all, were loaded on barges and shipped to what the papers called "the American Devil's Island."

Among the 53 prisoners were "Frisco Eddie" O'Brien, a famous train robber, Alvin Crip, a notorious Chicago gunman, and Capone.

Tough on prisoners

Prisoners were allowed no contact with the outside world on Alcatraz, no radios, no newspapers. Magazines and books were censored, nothing about crime, violence or sex. They had a rule of silence in the early years; cons could talk rarely and only in the exercise yard. "It's one tough joint," said prisoner William Henry Ambrose.

Capone became a model prisoner; he even played the banjo in the prison band. "It looks like Alcatraz has got me beat," he told the warden before he was reassigned to another prison after 4 1/2 years on The Rock.

Other big-time gangsters followed: George "Machine Gun" Kelly, who served 17 years on Alcatraz; Doc Barker, the son of gangster leader "Ma" Barker; Robert Stroud, the famous "Birdman of Alcatraz"; Alvin "Creepy" Karpis; and Floyd Hamilton, who drove a getaway car for Bonnie and Clyde.

There were plenty of less famous convicts, too.

The rules were tough, but what finally wore the prisoners down was the routine.

"It was numbingly boring," Martini said.

It could also be dangerous; there was an occasional killing. Even Capone was stabbed once.

In 1946, a bank robber named Bernard Coy overpowered a guard in the gun gallery and with accomplices captured nine more guards and took control of the main cell block.

What followed was the Battle of Alcatraz. They had to call in the Marines. Gunfire could be heard in San Francisco, and thousands of people watched the battle from the Marina.

When it was over, after 48 hours, three convicts and two guards were dead.

A parallel universe

Over most of the history of the island, the families of the guards lived in a parallel universe in homes outside the prison area.

"It was a nice, safe community," said Phil Dollison, whose father was associate warden. "We didn't have locks on the doors of the houses. We didn't even have keys. Our dads ran the prison, and all the bad guys were in the cell blocks, or in San Francisco."

In 1962, three convicts, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, dug through the cell walls, climbed up on the cell block roof, made flotation devices scrounged from prison supplies, left behind dummies to fool the guards - and disappeared.

They were never seen again. The FBI says they are dead.

But six months later, a burglar named John Paul Scott managed to swim off the island to San Francisco. He was picked up, exhausted but alive, near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Alcatraz was crumbling in the salt air and expensive to operate, and in 1963, Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered it closed.

The final 27 prisoners stepped off The Rock on March 21, 1963.

Alcatraz was later taken over by American Indians who occupied it for 18 months. It became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and was opened for public tours in 1973. It has become wildly popular with visitors.

"It's Alcatraz," Dollison said. "It's world famous."

Alcatraz facts and figures

1,545 Total number of convicts who did time on Alcatraz.

2 Number of ex-cons expected at Alcatraz reunion.

25 Number of years served by Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, who was in prison there longer than anyone else.